“Fight the Power”: Hip Hop and Civil Unrest in Spike Lee's <em>Do the Right Thing</em>

Abstract

A pivotal scene in Spike Lee's Oscar-nominated film Do the Right Thing (1989) happens when the protagonist Mookie, played by Lee, throws a garbage can through Sal's Famous Pizzeria following the death of his friend Radio Raheem, who has been strangled by three white policemen. The action made by Mookie incites a riot and causes a race war in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, neighborhood. Hip-hop, a cultural movement spawned from the Black Arts and Power Movements that articulates social awareness, consciousness of one's identity, social enjoyment, and creativity, drives Lee's narrative. The signature song Fight the Power, performed by Public Enemy, is heard throughout the film and dominates characters' dialogue with one another. Most notably, Radio Raheem utilizes the song as a protest speech against the lack of racial diversity and respect among Sal, Pino, and Vito, who work at and own Sal's Famous Pizzeria—a business at which Black youth congregate frequently. This article contends that hip-hop drives the narrative of Do the Right Thing in which Lee places at the center a racial uprising that embarks on a historical trajectory of Black Americans challenging American democracy and inequality.